4 tips for a stress free family picture day

It’s that time of year again as the holidays are fast approaching and we are racing to check everything off our list! Don’t worry there’s still time to get your family pictures done for that special holiday card. I love it when we can have a yearly family picture mainly so we can document the change and growth of my 5 children..its nice to share that growth with our family and friends as we send out our holiday cards. Today we are sharing 4 tips for a stress free family picture day, not that our family picture day was and is always perfect, but lets just say we have made it easy for you to learn from our mistakes. 🙂

Photos taken by our favorite Emily Egan from Emily Egan Photography She’s still booking for the next few weeks, if you would like to get your pictures done for that perfect holiday card or Happy New Year’s Greeting…plus there’s always Valentine’s day cards if you miss the other two. We have even done that before when things got too crazy for the holidays.

4 Tips for a stress free family picture day

1. Prep your outfits a few weeks in advance, I like to build my family picture color scheme by starting with one outfit. This year I started with Presley’s outfit, for some reason I am in love her little skinny camo jeans, because we were taking this picture in the fall + outdoors + in the mountains, I wanted to keep our colors more neutral and in line with the scenery. My three main places I like to shop for an awesome dressy casual look include, GAP, American Eagle, and RUUM american kids wear. Shop our outfit links below…

2. Make a list of items you will need just to make sure you don’t forget anything on picture day. Gather the items and put them in a specific bag by the door or in your car ready to go. Here is my list of must have items…

accessories- jewelry, hats, etc make sure you have jewelry for each girl.
shoes
hairspray, brush, bobbie pins, hair clip (to tighten up the back of a loose shirt)

3. Pamper yourself at a Salon the morning or afternoon of picture day…let them prep your hair and makeup! This will take the stress out of getting it just right. A huge thank to the ladies over at Pureza Spa for doing my hair and makeup on our picture day! They have an amazing group of women ready to cater to your every need, awesome stylists, as well as many other spa amenities. Make sure you check them out! Having my hair and makeup done on picture day was the best! I think I will plan to do it this way every year!

4. A little Photo shop love: One thing I have learned over the past 10 years of family pictures, no matter how hard you try to get the right colors, outfits, location etc…If not everyone is looking right, smiling right it will be very hard to get that almost perfect family picture. Luckily we were able to utilize a little photo shop love by doing what we call head swap magic. For example, the three family pictures above each had a little head swap magic involved in order to get it just right. My awesome talented friend and photographer Ginnie Johnson @ginjohn81 worked her head swap magic and adjusted the above three photos for me. Its actually a rare thing to find a photographer that can do it, so I feel very fortunate to know someone who can.

The first photo, my husband and I were the only ones NOT looking straight at the camera, she was able to swap both our heads from another picture with the same setting. The result, one of my absolute favorite family pictures to date.

Then notice the last two family pictures are only slightly different, I loved them both for different reasons but I was not looking at the camera in one of them as well as my son Jackson on the far right, he was not smiling, so again she quickly swapped out his head in one and my head in the other, and I now have two other favorite family picture options I can blow up. One of these days I will talk my friend into doing a video tutorial so we can all learn the art of the head swap, it really is amazing and can make the difference in getting that perfect final family picture that you will want to blow up and print!